Department of Art History and Art Conservation Public Lecture:

"Building a new New World: Americanism and the Soviet City"

Dr. Jean-Louis Cohen (Sheldon H. Solow Chair for the HIstory of Architecture at New York University's Institute of Fine Arts and a triennial chair at the the Collège de France, Paris)

Within the broad phenomenon of Americanism, a system of cultural transfer characteristic of modernity and modernization worldwide, the most paradoxical bilateral relationship is the one established between Russia and the United States during the long 20th century. Every historical conjuncture in Soviet history has been characterized by changing representations of America’s technology, territorial development, architecture, and visual culture. A comprehensive analysis of this phenomenon, all too often limited to the – monumental - case of the high-rise buildings erected in the late Stalinist era is still need. Its interpretation can develop through the prism of architecture and urban design, relying on the analysis of discourse, designs and buildings. Politics, art, literature, and technology have also to be involved in the discussion of many ideal, and occasionally, built projects.